How to Fix Error Too Many Redirects in Google Chrome?

What is a Redirect?

URL or Uniform Resource Locator is a unique identifier to find a webpage on the internet. Every webpage on the internet has a unique locator, so that users can enter the URL on address bar and access the page. Similarly, search engines need this URL to index the content and show in the search results. There are many reasons for website owners to change the URL of a webpage. In order to retain the ranking of a previous page, website owners setup a redirect to a new page.

When users and search engines try to access the old page, the redirect rule will automatically take them to the new page indicating the final destination is different.

Why to Setup a Redirect?

Below are some of the reasons for setting up a redirect.

Migrating website from one platform to another that has different structure of URL. For example, the static website will have URL like “site.com/page.html” and when you move this to dynamic platforms the URL needs to have a new structure like “site.com/page.php”.

Website owner updated the content and changed the URL. For example, the old URL is like “site.com/blog/03/2018/page.html” and the URL with the updated content could be like “site.com/blog/11/2018/page.html”.

The content may be out-dated and the owner deleted because it is no more relevant. In this situation, the website will show 404 page not found error. In order to avoid this, owner can setup a redirect and forward the user to another relevant page.

It is difficult task to get good ranking for a webpage in search engines like Google. When the site owner updates the URL to a new page, they need to ensure the ranking of the previous page is retained in search engines. So, the major reason for setting up redirect is to retain the search engine ranking of the previous page. Since search engines always consider the content on the final destination page for indexing, you will only read the updated content on the browser, though the old page has different content.

What is Too Many Redirects Error?

Over the period of time, website owner may setup multiple redirect for a single page. However, browsers like Chrome and Firefox can only follow up to 5 redirects to find the destination page. When the browser could not find the content and still forwarded to another page after five redirects then you will see error like “Err_Too_Many_Redirects” or “Too many redirects. Can’t load site”.

There could also be other wrong redirection setup at server side can cause this error on browser.

How to Fix Err_Too_Many_Redirects in Chrome”?

Now you know the reason for too many redirects from website owner perspective. However, there could be certain reasons, too many redirects can happen on your computer though website works properly. The “ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECT” will prevent you from accessing a website, displaying a page with the following error message:

Error Too Many Redirects in Chrome

Identify the Problem’s Source

When you get the error on Chrome, try the URL with a different browser like Firefox or Edge or Safari. You can also try to open the same webpage on mobile device with different network. If the same error occurs, it can be a problem with the site and is beyond your control. For example, Firefox will show the error like “The page isn’t redirecting properly”.

Error Too Many Redirects in Firefox

However, if it works with other browsers, the problem is with your Google Chrome browser. Let us check out how to fix Err_Too_Many_Redirects error in Chrome for both scenarios.

For Users:

1. Clearing Chrome Data

“ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECT” issues can be caused by a faulty file in your browser data such as history, cookies and cache. Probably you still have older URL on your browser’s cache while the website has different URL. Clearing this data on Chrome can solve the problem.

Open the Chrome browser on your desktop. Type “chrome://settings” in the address bar and hit enter key. Alternatively you can navigate through the Chrome menu (the three vertical lines) on the top-right corner of the screen and select “Settings”.

Access Chrome Settings

Once you are in the settings page, scroll down and click “Advanced” option.

Advanced Chrome Settings

Click on “Clear browsing data” under “Privacy and security” section. Once the “Clear browsing data” screen appears, select the check boxes for “Browsing history”, “Cookies and other site data” and “Cached images and files” under “Advanced” tab. You may select more or all if you need to clear everything. Select the time range as “All time” and click the “Clear Data” button.

Delete History Advanced View in Chrome

Now check you can access the webpage.

2. Disable the Browser Extensions

The “ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECT” could result from Chrome extension also. You may disable the extensions to fix the problem.

Launch the Chrome browser on your PC. Click on the Menu Icon on the top-right corner of the browser window and hover the mouse over “More Tools”, then select “Extensions”.

Open Chrome Extensions

Disable the extensions one at a time; check whether the issue has been resolved. This will help you to identify the particular extension that causes the error.

Disable Extensions in Chrome

Check this help to resolve the issue, if not you can enable all the extensions back.

3. Adjust the PC Time and Date

The redirection error could be caused by wrong time and date settings on your PC. Check the computer date and time and adjust accordingly.

Press “Win + R” keys on the keyboard and type “Control Panel”, then click “OK” or press enter. This will open the “Control Panel”. Select “Clock, Language and Region” option.

Windows 10 Control Panel

Click “Date and Time” option.

Date Time Settings

Under the “Internet Time” tab, click on “Change settings” button.

Internet Time Settings

Click “Update now” and wait for the time to update automatically. Then click “OK” and close the settings window.

Update Time

Visit the site to see if the problem has been resolved.

4. Flush DNS

Corrupted DNS entries can hold the old location of the webpage and causing problems. Follow the instructions on our article to flush DNS on Windows and macOS.

For Website Owners

As explained above, in most cases, Err_Too_Many_Redirects error will be the result of improper redirect setup at the web server. If you are a website owner, follow the below instructions to ensure you have correct setup.

5. Check Redirection

There are many ways to setup redirection on a website. Below are the two most common ways:

At any case, ensure to test whether the redirection is working properly after setting up. You also need to clear browser’s cache to test the setup.

6. Redirect Loop

Over the period of time you may need to change the pages on your site frequently. The most common situation you may end up is to setup a redirect loop. Below is an example of redirect loop setup:

1st redirection – old page 1 > new page 1

2nd redirection – new page 1 > new page 2

3rd redirection – new page 2 > old page 1

In this case, Chrome will show you too many redirects error when you try to access the URL of old page 1. So ensure to monitor the redirect loops and properly setup the source and destination URLs for redirection.

7. Mix Up Redirects

Website owner can setup the redirect in different manner. For each redirect type, the web server will send a different HTTP status code to the browser.

302 (found) – this indicates the old page is temporarily redirected to a new page. Though the browser redirects to the new page, search engines will still keep the old pages in the index.

307 (temporary redirect) – this is a correct temporary redirect most of the browsers support.

Based on your need ensure to setup correctly and not mix up different options in a same redirect setup. For example, below setup of mixing 301 and 307 may lead to too many redirects error in browsers.

Page 1 > 301 > Page 2 > 307 > Page 3 > 301 > Page 4

Check the redirect error page and remove all mixed up redirection and setup correctly.

8. Too Many Redirects

This is another situation that you end up in setting up too many redirects for a single source page. it can happen in two ways – setting redirection of the same source page to different destination pages. Or setting up more than 5 redirects in a sequence to access the destination page. Search engines like Google will stop at 3rd redirects and browsers will stop at 5th sequence. You will generally see too many redirects error in such case.

Infinite Redirect Loop

Check the page causing problem and minimize the number of redirects to maximum of 3 to make it work.

Conclusion

Users and site owners can follow the above instructions to fix ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS in Chrome. However, if you are a user and not able to access the page, you can either inform the site owner or wait for the site owner to resolve the issue.

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